Space Accommodation in Schools During the Pandemic

Space Accommodation in Schools During the Pandemic

One of the most controversial discussions these days has to be how to safely reopen schools in the fall.  It is indisputable that schools need to get back so that kids can learn and be together.  The pandemic shutdown has been hardest on the young because they don't understand just what has been happening and why they aren't at school.  You can try to explain it to them, but that doesn't mean they can actually comprehend.  In addition, any attempt to fill the gaps created by schools being closed has been obviously more than inadequate. Some kids have learned and some have thrived but lots have not made any progress at all.  Kids are like pets in that they are trained to behave and to learn and to try and work towards their potential but if that process is interrupted, they lose ground.  ALWAYS.  So schools have to go back.  But the question is how to do so safely.  It seems to me that one conversation that has not taken place has been that which looks at the age of the students as a factor in how to get them back into school. If we start at the oldest kids first, and here I am referring to secondary schools,  not post secondary. There it is  a whole different conversation, but I am here referring only to elementary and secondary students.  High school students can very easily go to school on staggered hours.  They don't need baby sitters, they are independent, they ought to be learning how to be independent in their studies.  They most often understand the tools of technology and what they don't understand, they can learn relatively quickly.  High schools should be open as they are during examinations and students should have schedules when they can come to school to talk about assignments, to have access to resources and to their teachers who can guide them on their learning journeys. Those that need more help should be able to schedule more time.  It is all about individualized learning anyways since they always pick from a broad spectrum of classes and don't ever meet as home rooms, really.  Moving down in age, the same standards can be applied to Junior High School aged kids.  They do have home rooms, but they don't have to meet in large groups. Their access to school and to their teachers can be staggered since they too ought to be fairly independent. They can have access online to course work and sit with instructors to get help if and when they need it. They do NOT have to be in school five or six hours a day, as long as they are required to check in daily with their teachers in some way.  That leaves the youngest kids. Studies indicate that they are least likely to get the virus or to shed it if they do. they are the ones that need the most group work, the most hours in classes in front of teachers with others their own age.  They should be able to fill up the school rooms and be spread out throughout the school keeping regular hours but meeting in more places than one classroom, even if that means renting space in churches and synagogues and libraries and so forth.  It seems to me that it is all about maximizing the space available in public buildings so that little people can be together with their teachers.  In my opinion they could do everything together like in their own little bubble.  AS close as they can come to classroom environments the better off they will be.  Of course, the obstacles are mostly financial, not health.  The teachers need to be trained, there needs to be more of them, they need to be tested and properly equipped.  It will be interesting to see just what does take place in the next few months because, in the States, it's all about the money.  Where there is a will, there is a way....for sure.

Good Online Teaching Takes Time

Good Online Teaching Takes Time

I have been teaching online for a long time.  One of the things I learned right at the beginning is that  to be a good online communicator, you need to invest time.  In the classroom, when  you stand in front of a group of students and answer questions, either the students are listening or not and you don't have to repeat the answer to the same question over and over.  But when your students are engaged in a learning exercise with you as their guide on the side, you cannot shirk your duties to help them.  Anyone who is a parent knows that learning takes place all day long. Children are curious and ask questions about everything, at any time. You can't be a good parent and limit the time when the questions are asked or answered. The same thing applies when you are working with students online.  If they are doing an assignment when you are in the classroom, they can put their hand up or approach your desk for help or encouragement.  When there is no real desk and no real classroom, they have to reach out and they can do that at any time. I often found myself glued to my desk typing half the evening away.  I let my students know that I would answer their questions as frequently as I was able.  They soon knew that I was true to my word and they could seek responses most of the times of the day.  When you do that, you are also working one on one but with every student in the class. You can not be selective and the more you engage your students in conversations, albeit cybernetically, the more likely they are to learn from you.  You have to give of yourself each time to secure a relationship with your students.  One word or two word answers are not sufficient for that.  Naturally, teaching online takes an enormous amount of time and so when teachers complain today about the time needed to invest in being online because students can't go to school. due to the pandemic, they have a very legitimate complaint.  However, I never felt overburdened because I saw the time I spent with my students online was just the cost of doing my job.  I loved the interaction with them and I loved the trust and affection they had for me because they knew that I was giving of myself. It is at that point exactly when we actually become good teachers.  Good teaching and good parenting BOTH need lots of time. The trick is to learn how to draw the line in the sand so that there is time for you, the person, as well. But that's another lesson.

Individualized Instruction NOW More Than EVER

Individualized Instruction NOW More Than EVER

For all the years that I was in Teacher Education, I advocated as much as possible the process we call Individualized Instruction. What that means is that students in any classroom will be NOT taught by a sage on the stage to a group of empty vessels waiting to be filled up all at the same time on a manufacturing line, but by a guide on the side whose job it is is to help students learn that which they don't already know.  Not every student takes the same amount of time to master the skills of arithmetic. Not everyone needs to be able to read maps to the same equal level of ability.  Some kids want to learn with he Arts and others by reading and writing.   We should be working to teach each student according to his ability while constantly pushing each student forward.  Individualized instruction, however, requires far more time by the teacher and far more preparation and therein lies the rub.  Students have had varying amounts of lesson learning and completion while at home and not in school;  Some are much further ahead than others for a variety of reasons - ability, parental pushing, quietness or lack thereof at home and so forth.  So, assuming every school goes back in the fall, every classroom is going to be filled with students in any particular grade, all working and understanding at various very different levels of comprehension and ability.  It will not be an easy task to take 25 or 26 Grade 4 students and get them back to all doing the same thing because they all won't be able to.  She will have VERY Heterogenous classroom abilities and the teacher will need to program for every ability and hope for the best. No would be the ideal time have a staff of professionals who know how to teach each child at their own level. WE have been very lax with classroom teachers . Some still have their classrooms in rows and use the same assignment and assessment strategies for everyone.  Now would be the ideal time to be proficient in individualized instructon so that the children would be benefitting from working at things they truly need to be able to and at a pace not at all like any of the other students.  Individualized instruction requires much knowledge of each student, patience to be able to work with students one on one and the skill set to do that with 25 students all at the same time. Now we pay for our inability to motivate everyone to be able to do the same things but each according to their own unique style.  Let's see wha the fall brings an dhow often teachers cry out for adult education on learning in that way.

The Missing Component

The  Missing Component

There is a huge debate going on right now about what school will be like in September, in the midst of a raging pandemic.  Canada is very different from the United States but the issues are essentially the same thing.  Schools are hotbeds of viruses and illnesses.  No one has to tell a teacher that kids bring everything from home into there classroom. They might not bet sick themselves, but they can either bring an infection from home to the classroom or from the classroom and fellow students home.  That is not a huge problem when everyone has colds or the flue, but it is when the infection is the measles or now, even worse, Covid - 19.  Kids might not ever get as sick as the adults in their world, but that doesn't mean that they can't infect the adults they live with who might end up sick and in danger of losing their lives, as it were, with the current pandemic.  So, the solution has been to commit to a full term of online learning and many school boards and universities are suggesting that there will be only online learning.  Now, as a former pioneer in the use of online communications and online learning, it is one thing to believe in the potency of this method of teaching and learning, and it is another thing entirely to ready teachers to be successful at the processes.  I speak from many years of experience with staff development and teaching Teacher Education, there are huge numbers of in class teachers who are afraid to using online learning or have absolutely no ability to communicate online to their students.  What is not being even talked about in this push to online learning is whether or not Teachers will be able to fulfil the needs of their students. Can they learn how to effectively mount their courses online? Can they use the technology to encourage  their students to complete tasks?  Can they effectively communicate in real time or offline with their students so that students understand what is expected of them? There are many further major and minor questions but the whole thing adds up to a task for staff development.  This, of course, opens up another can of worms.  Will school boards pay for teacher time to learn the skills necessary or to learn that which they still don't know how to do?  Theoretically, every teacher should be in school now, this summer, learning how to teach online and  how best to encourage their students to learn online.  It is much harder than one thinks and unless it is done properly, not only is there no learning, there is there acquisition of dispositions AGAINST the online  learning because of the bad experiences.  If I tell a group of teachers in the summer that it is not as hard as it sounds and then they run into trouble because they have not really yet mastered the skills, they will be turned off from trying again.  Teachers are like that.  So, unless each jurisdiction puts major bucks into professional development for the next six months and trains staff into what they need to be able to think and do, another school year will be wasted.  It is as simple as that.